Field of Science

Friday Fabulous Flower at the fruit stage


Found this fruit in our woodland garden the other day, and it is a bit unusual.  Everyone's first thought is raspberry, and this is the same type of fruit derived from many pistils in the same flower, an aggregate fruit. 
So technically each unit is a fruitlet partially fused to its neighbors.  But this type of fleshy fruit is not common in this family (buttercup).  The leaf may not even help you identify this plant as it is not common here abouts, and it gets collected destructively for use as a medicinal and in many areas it is over collected.  This is Hydrastis canadensis, goldenseal.  How did you do?  Ever see this before?  The flower is constructed along the lines of last week's FFF, no showy perianth but lots of showy anthers around a number of pistils. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dearest Phactor,
Fooled me....a totally new plant to me and would never have guessed Ranunculaceae.
Perhaps (next year) some other posts showing a young plant and it flowering?
thanks for posting...and a happy healthy 71st year to the Phactors.
BrianO

Katherine Wagner-Reiss said...

Thanks for bringing Hydrastis canadensis to our attention. It is endangered in CT and I had never seen nor heard about it before.
Now, it is on my radar!